What follows is a love story, but it might not sell to the Harlequin crowd.

David Tate and Erica Snow were introduced four years ago by a mutual friend — their drug dealer — when both showed up to score a few rocks of crack cocaine.

Snow, born and raised in Monterey, was a certified nursing assistant for Central Coast Senior Services and a caregiver for a loving father who was nearing the end of his days. Tate had been a self-described "hustler" for much of his adult life, supporting his habit by dealing crack to a couple of dozen fellow addicts who hung around Roberts Lake in Seaside.

It wasn't quite love at first sight, Snow says.

"We all got into a car together. David kept calling me 'baby,'" she recalls. "I was sitting there telling myself, 'My mama didn't name me Baby.'"

Their first date didn't go all that well, either. She got all spruced up. He called at the last minute to say he wasn't going to make it. Snow told Tate to get his act together before he called her again. "But I didn't say it quite that nice," she says.

Snow and her father lived in a nice, two-two story home in Monterey. He was retired military and his income paid the mortgage, water, sewer, lights and gas — more than $2,400 a month. Tate lived in the bushes and under bridges.

"The trick to living under a bridge? First of all, you need to have absolutely no self-esteem," he says. "Secondly, you need a good sleeping bag. And, finally, it's good if you haven't done any harm to anybody else. That way, you can close your eyes without worrying that somebody might kick your head in."

Considering the money that flowed through his fingers — sometimes $2,500 a day — he probably could have opted for a roof over his head, but that wasn't his priority.

"I recognized my bottom one day in 1997 when I had $150 in cash in my pocket, along with 14 rocks (of cocaine), and I was eating out of a Dumpster," he says. "That's when it finally dawned on me that my life was out of control."

He was in and out of rehabilitation programs, but his addiction continued. What began as a fun high turned into a means of trying to feel "normal." Tate says he would typically need three rocks and a half-pint of liquor to get him through the day.

While Tate was supporting a $200-a-day habit by dealing the drug, Snow was using her nursing paychecks. Later, after she became disabled by diabetes, fibromyalgia, a knee injury that required surgery and back problems, she also began tapping the bank account of her dying father.

"Erica got $1,100 from her father for her last real run, and it was gone in three days," Tate says.

"I'd spend $200, $300, $400 a day. It was nothing to me," says Snow, a mother and grandmother. "I told lies — a lot of lies — to get the money. I had money of my own, but it wasn't enough, so after I'd run through my money, I'd run through my father's money. I couldn't even remember the person I used to be. He knew what I was doing, and it was hurting him. And that still hurts me today."

Tate and Snow got clean together. He got the support he needed, he says, through Judge Sam Lavorato Jr. and Drug Treatment Court. Snow says she fell to her knees one day to ask God for help.

"I asked him to take away my pain, and I asked him to take that lust for the drugs, and he did," she says. "I haven't touched drugs since. The urge was gone, just like that. I don't crave it. I don't even think about it."

A blessing for Snow is that she straightened herself out before her father died. He recognized that she had changed and died in peace, she says, knowing his only child was going to be OK. His last week, she says, was the most wonderful time she ever spent with him as an adult.

But the couple's reconstruction of their lives was only beginning.

When her father died, his income went away. She couldn't afford to stay in the house, and for the first time in her life, she was homeless.

Fortunately, kindness and good fortune were coming Tate's way. Two friends, Greg and Roberta Young, helped set him up with an auto-detailing business.

"I'd wash all of Greg's vehicles for free, and one day Greg took me to Palo Alto and helped me buy a van," he says. "In fact, he actually bought the van for me."

The Ford F350 became home to Tate, and later to Snow, who otherwise would have been on the streets. Both were drug-free by then, and they no longer were drinking. Tate did odd jobs to buy their food, gasoline and car insurance for the van and Snow's car.

Snow was traumatized by homelessness but grateful for the meager accommodations. The van was large enough to hold a queen-sized mattress, with room left over for a cooler. She put clean sheets, blankets and a new comforter on their bed, hung curtains, swept and cleaned.

"I turned David's bachelor van into a nest," she says with a laugh.

They showered and often ate at the Salvation Army, where they were surrounded in love. When Snow awoke one morning to discover that all four tires on her car had been slashed, friends and strangers came through.

"We had $35 between us," Tate says. "Jose, who works at the Salvation Army, gave us $200 of his own money, and another person, a client of the Salvation Army, handed me $60. Another person there used his AAA insurance to tow the car to Monterey Tire, and the guy there put four tires on the car for free. By nightfall, we had good tires on the car and it hadn't cost us a dime."

When Snow had knee surgery and was unable to live in the van, the Salvation Army paid for three days in a hotel. A social worker at Natividad Medical Center picked up the tab for another week.

A nonprofit program called Turning Point helped Tate, an experienced sous chef, upgrade a long-dormant resume, which led to a job at Big Sur Lodge in Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park. That, along with move-in assistance from the Salvation Army, got them into a bright, comfortable apartment in Marina.

Snow is now two years free of her substance-abuse habit. Tate, a 25-year addict, hasn't used in 2½ years.

Tate repaid the $260 he borrowed for the tires, and went back to Monterey Tire recently and purchased four new tires for the van. They have become regulars at Shoreline Church, and they continue to frequent the Salvation Army (which they call "Sally") to give thanks to everybody who helped them, and do their part to help others.

"God put a lot of wonderful people in our lives," Snow says. "He took us through these trials for a reason. He wanted us to become grateful for what we have. And he also wanted to teach us that you can be up today, but down tomorrow."

Operation Christmas Cheer

Operation Christmas Cheer is sponsored by The Herald, the Salvation Army and 1st Capital Bank to help local families that find themselves in need this time of year.

Operation Christmas Cheer has raised more than $2 million, which has been distributed to needy Monterey County families and individuals over the holidays.

The money helps families who have come to the Salvation Army for support. Applications are screened and contributions will go directly to assist Salvation Army clients on the Monterey Peninsula and in the Salinas Valley.

During the coming weeks, The Herald will profile several families needing help this year.

A special feature of the Operation Christmas Cheer campaign is that contributors can have a brief personalized holiday message published in the newspaper by using a coupon printed each day in The Herald or by printing it from The Herald's website, www.montereyherald.com.

Operation Christmas Cheer, a program sponsored by The Herald, the Salvation Army and 1st Capital Bank to help local families that find themselves in need this time of year, has raised $11,795 so far this season. Last year at this time $6,775 had been raised.